This application relates to devices, techniques and systems for communications, including wireless communication systems.
A wireless communication system can include a network of base stations (or radio cells) to wirelessly communicate with one or more wireless devices or user equipment (UE) devices via radio frequency (RF) signals. Examples of UE devices include a mobile device or mobile station (MS), a wireless air card or USB device, access terminal (AT), a subscriber station (SS), a portable computer (e.g., a laptop, a netbook computer or a tablet device), and an electronic reader. Each base station can emit radio signals that carry signaling and data to UE devices via forward links (FLs) or downlinks (DLs) within a limited geographic coverage area known as a radio cell (or cell). Also, a radio cell is synonymously described as a base station throughout this document.
The signaling can include various control and network management signals. The data can include any or all of voice data, text data, graphic data, application data, audio data, and video data. A base station can be referred to as an access point (AP) or an access network (AN), or can be included as part of an AN. A UE device can transmit a signal on a reverse link (RL), or uplink (UL), to a base station. The wireless communication system can include one or more radio access network controllers to control one or more base stations. Examples of various wireless technologies include Long-Term Evolution (LTE), Evolved High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA+), Code division Multiple Access (CDMA) technologies (e.g., CDMA2000 1x, and High Rate Packet Data (HRPD)), Wideband CDMA (WCDMA) technologies, and WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access).
Mobile UE devices operate on battery power and one of the key performance measures for mobile communication services is improved mobile power efficiency. One technique for reducing power consumption by mobile UE devices is discontinuous transmission (DTX) and discontinuous reception (DRX). DTX and DRX can be implemented by setting up the transmission and reception patterns and triggers so that a mobile UE only turns its RF transceiver on at certain periods, while staying in a sleep mode by shutting the RF modem off at other times. As such, a mobile UE does not continuously monitor signaling from a serving network and thus reduces its power consumption.
Like reference symbols and designations in the various drawings indicate like elements.